Very strange question

Claiken · Post by **Claiken** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:25 pm

I noticed this sometimes in my practise room. You know how when playing flute, you use a certain muscle to close off your nose, so that hair is only escaping through your mouth?? Well, i find if ive been practising for a while, this muscle will no longer keep my nose completely closed off to the air. Its almost like my nose will leak air, even though air is coming out of my mouth. Is this normal? Does it mean its time for a break? or am i doing something wrong?

I hope someone even understands what i mean!

flutepicc06 · Post by **flutepicc06** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:14 pm

That is an unusual problem. I've learned to control that so that I can exhale through my nose without disrupting my sound, but it's always a conscious choice for me. I can't say I have ever heard of anyone with this problem before, but do some experimenting to try to solve it. See if taking a break (maybe five minutes every 1/2 hour of playing) helps, or you might even try exercising the muscles you use to prevent air escaping through your nose to build up strength and endurance (as wierd as that may sound, it could well do the trick). As a last resort, I suppose you could wear a nost clip like swimmers do while you play.

Serpentine · Post by **Serpentine** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:06 pm

Alternativly, you could teach your nose to breath in while you play! This would be circular breathing and sto any problems with running out of air!!!

flutepicc06 · Post by **flutepicc06** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:05 pm

Serpentine wrote:Alternativly, you could teach your nose to breath in while you play! This would be circular breathing and sto any problems with running out of air!!!

While it can make it possible to play longer without breathing, circular breathing has some musical disadvantages. Most people expect to hear some breathing, and when they don't hear it, your audience can start to feel like they're out of breath just from listening to you. It really takes away from the music, in my opinion. In almost any piece there is a way to fit breaths into the music artistically, and there's really no call for circular breathing except in a few VERY rare circumstances. Besides being unappealing musically, it's much more difficult to learn to do well on flute than on other instruments because of the lack of resistance. The time you would be spending on learning to circular breathe could be much better spent on other aspects of playing that might actually serve a necessary purpose.

MonikaFL · Post by **MonikaFL** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:10 pm

I agree flutepicc06. I audited a Rampal masterclass once, and he spoke about making breathing part of the music. Making it like a conversation -- breathing in the natural places. (He also said something like, "get over it, it's a flute, you have to breathe!") LOL

fluteguy18 · Post by **fluteguy18** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:00 pm

very good point. The only reason I wish I knew how to circular breathe, is because in Charles Griffes's "Poem" towards the end, there is a section about 30 seconds that is supposed to be swirling and spinning out of control as it accelerates. So, every time I had to take a breath, it seemed as if it was somewhat interupted. So this feeling that the audience would have gotten of being overwhelmed by not breathing would have been very effective in my opinion.

But yes, there are many more important things to learn and spend time on.

Claiken · Post by **Claiken** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:15 am

circular breathing would be a neat 'feature' if you will, but Is it possible to breathe in & out at the saem time? breathing is actually probably my 2nd largest weakness, next to high notes (i tend to breathe too long in a piece, and not take in enough air.)

I asked my teacher yesterday about that muscle thing I was talking about, and she has never encountered this problem before. Am I broken? LOL. Im thinking abuot emailing the flute prof at school and seeing if she has ever had a student with that problem. my current teacher is gonig to ask around too.

MonikaFL · Post by **MonikaFL** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:26 am

Do you have sinus problems ever? Have you been sick recently? Or is this always happening?

It seems to me that my bassoonist friend was having this problem when he was really sick a few weeks ago. I'm going to see him for a rehearsal this evening, and I'll ask him about it. I know at the least, he's familiar with the problem. Maybe he can offer some suggestions.

Claiken · Post by **Claiken** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:37 pm

That would be great! Let me know what he says!!

Claiken · Post by **Claiken** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:50 pm

I thought of something in the practise room today... do you think phlem may have anything to do with my problem? With my allergies I can get pretty stuffy while im playing.

It happened again today but I did my best to force myself to keep playing until i played through my Andante piece. I wont be able to stop and hawk a loogie into the garbage in my audition, so I should try not to in the practise room too. it was a little rough but I did it.

I mostly wanted to keep playing in case maybe its some sort of weird throat muscle fatigue thing. I figure each time you go for a jog you can go a little longer without feeling tired. same with playing.

flutepicc06 · Post by **flutepicc06** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:07 pm

Claiken wrote:I thought of something in the practise room today... do you think phlem may have anything to do with my problem? With my allergies I can get pretty stuffy while im playing.

It happened again today but I did my best to force myself to keep playing until i played through my Andante piece. I wont be able to stop and hawk a loogie into the garbage in my audition, so I should try not to in the practise room too. it was a little rough but I did it.

I mostly wanted to keep playing in case maybe its some sort of weird throat muscle fatigue thing. I figure each time you go for a jog you can go a little longer without feeling tired. same with playing.

Phlegm or the lack thereof should have nothing to do with air leaking out of your nose as you play. It might affect other parts of your playing (I'm thinking breathing in particular), but not whether or not you're able to seal your nose off. In any case, the throat muscles are very unlikely to have anything to do with this problem, as they're much lower down than those surrounding the nose, and in any case shouldn't be doing too much besides staying open and creating vibrato.

MonikaFL · Post by **MonikaFL** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:30 pm

I'm so sorry, I forgot to ask my friend about this - things were kinda crazy last week! I will try to remember when I see him later this week though.

I do know that every time it's happened to him he's been sick or in the early stages of getting over being sick, and his tonsils were inflamed or he was having sinus issues. So I don't know if the phlegm is necessarily the issue, but I see where you're coming from on that line of thinking...

MonikaFL · Post by **MonikaFL** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:03 am

Claiken - I spoke w/my bassoonist friend (who is also a woodwinds teacher and often plays with the symphony here)... he says it sounds like "soft palette issues", that it's not strong enough to keep the air from leaking through the nose. He says he guesses that if your allergies have been acting up, that the soft palette could have been irritated in some way to cause it to weaken. He doesn't know of anything you can DO to fix it though... and when you are healthy again the problem should go away? If it doesn't, if you're still having this problem, he says he's not sure what to tell you, except maybe to see an ENT to see what's going on.

So, does this always happen? Even when you're completely healthy? Or just when you're sick/having allergies?

Claiken · Post by **Claiken** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:24 am

I just started noticing it maybe 3 weeks ago now. But even with allergies, i have to play at least 1-1.5 hours in the practise room usually before it will start to happen. Sometimes if I really think about it I can keep playing normally, but then I know that if I stop to think about this muscle, then i stop thinking abuot my tone, which I should be thinking about all the time right now.

Thanks for asking him though, I really do appreciate it! I was going to say that maybe its a seasonal issue, but last year around this time it wasnt happening...